Like many people, I oppose unions on principle. That principle is: never negotiate the dinner
menu with cannibals.
American workers overwhelmingly reject unionism. According
to a 2010 study by university researchers Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson,
only 7.2% of private sector workers belonged to unions in 2009. 93% prefer to
work union-free.
Union apologists blame their declining numbers on threats
and intimidation of workers by evil capitalist employers. Nice try, Norma Rae, but only 32.7% of public sector workers choose to be
unionized, and last time I checked, John Galt was not running the Department of
Labor.
As a guy who came up from the factory floor, I can assure
you that workers are not stupid, gullible, or easily intimidated. 90% of private sector workers and 70% of
public employees know they have a right to organize a union, and have freely
chosen not to.
But union bosses, like socialists everywhere, do not
recognize the will of the people; they claim to embody the will of the people.
So they have tasked their wholly owned subsidiary, the Democrat Party,
with depriving workers of their right to vote on workplace representation - to
replace the secret ballot election with imposition of a union by the
State. This is an idea so hideous that
even George McGovern – hardly a capitalist tool - came out of retirement to
oppose it.
The Senate Bill eliminating union elections is cynically
titled the “Employee Free Choice Act”, commonly referred to as Card Check. If Congress were subject to truth in
advertising laws, it would be titled “Employee No Choice Act”, as its sole
purpose is to deprive workers the right to choose.
If enacted, Card Check will empower the government to impose
a union on any employer when 50% of employees sign interest cards. It also authorizes the government to impose
contract terms if the union does not accept a company offer within 90
days. It does not take a rocket surgeon
to figure out that there is no incentive for either party to bargain, so the
practical impact of the Bill is for government to set labor prices and
benefits. That should work well.
Now, when it was Al Gore’s job on the line, Democrats were
the party of no-chad-left-behind, remember?
Every single vote was precious, even the ones that weren’t cast. No such
luck for us working stiffs; we are just an untapped source of union dues which
funnel back into the Dems campaign coffers – a herd of cows to be milked each
payday.
State-imposed unionism is the antithesis of libertarian
individualism in the workplace; economic subjugation and economic sovereignty
are diametrically opposite ideals. But
opposition to unions can be justified on more practical grounds.
Unions protect incompetents from the consequences of their own
actions, and force those consequences onto others – observe the Milwaukee Public Schools
Over my career I have been involved in five union organizing
campaigns at three different firms; each one was marked by unions inflicting physical
violence to persons and property to coerce the signing of interest cards. Unions targeted the most vulnerable to get the
number needed to call an election. The
idea that NLRB rules disadvantage unions is laughable.
The unions were defeated overwhelmingly in each one of those
elections, and four of the five campaigns occurred during Democrat
administrations, so the “stacked NLRB deck” argument won’t fly. People who signed interest cards under duress
voted against the unions in the secret ballot. That is the problem Card Check solves for the unions.
Under Card Check, unions would have been imposed upon those workers
by their own government without any election. Pause for a moment to reflect on the obscenity
of that proposition: the right to remain union-free will be denied by the very government
tasked with protecting that right.
The Hirsch and Macpherson study also listed the unionization
rate among public workers by state. It
is no coincidence that the 10 states which are more than 50% unionized are the
10 states teetering on insolvency – Wisconsin
We can now add government and education to the list of
American industries devoured by the union cannibals: mining, shipbuilding,
logging, steel, automobiles, appliances, electronics, textiles, airlines,
machine tools, consumer products, furniture, musical instruments – the list is
too long to recite.
To a cannibal, success is being the last one in his tribe to
die of starvation. His union campaign is
your invitation to dinner; Card Check lets the government RSVP on your
behalf. Fight back now, before it is too
late.
“Moment
Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim
Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com
to find your moment.
